Drownning in Drabbles
by 630leosa
Summary: A collection of Drabbles from the Teen-Titans universe. Some random scenes/short stories without a beginning or a middle or an end. Feel free to use/abuse/continue anything you read in here    ... Mostly introspective stories.
1. Shadows of Silence

Silence is golden. Isn't that how the expression goes?

And no one knew the silence better than him. He lives in it. Every move, every breath, every second. Silence. Always silence.

He can't even remember what his voice sounded like, he knows he has one, but so far he hasn't had a reason to use it.

He's been raised for stealth. Though the faces and names of those who raised him have been long forgotten, he's never forgotten his training.

Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut: that was the earliest thing he could remember. And those were the words that he struck deep into his heart. He always followed his orders to the letter, learning how to fight like the demon they told him he was. And always in silence, always watching.

Watching everything around him as he flitted through the city like a shadow in the night. Jump City was just an oversized playground to him, and in between his training he entertained himself with petty crime. Slipping in and out of places without anyone ever knowing he was there.

But part of him _wanted _to get caught, to feel the adrenaline of _fear and being forced to fight or flee for his life. He was bored of being nothing more than a silent shadow, hidden from the world he watched so carefully. In plain sight yet somehow just out of reach._

_Looking back he realized that it was inevitable: he purposely became careless, hoping to get caught. It was obvious that he'd catch the attention of one of the higher villain's in the city. But at the time he remained blissfully unaware of the fact that he was being watched._

_Brother Blood. _

_Blood told him that he had unleashed potential, and that his academy could unlock that potential._

_He took him up on his offer and he never looked back._

_He isn't just a silent shadow in the night. He is Kyd Wykkyd and that's all wants to be._


	2. Silently Fuming

Joseph William Wilson didn't mind being mute. True, it was harder to try and get people to understand him, but that was fine by him. He'd lived alone on his mountain for so long that he didn't really feel the need to 'talk' to anyone much anyway.

And even though he'd never admit it, he did use it to his advantage sometimes. If he didn't like someone, he often amused himself by offending people who didn't understand him, right to their face. He was a very friendly person, but nowhere near as sweet and innocent as people tended to think he was.

Plus the girls seemed to like to think of him as the gentle innocent artist, and he wasn't going to be the one to correct them. After all - quite unintentionally - he had become a bit of a 'ladies'-man', with a different date every other night. Sure, he could be placid and gentle, but that was just one side of him.

People tended to forget - or he hadn't told them - that he was also the son of Deathstroke the Terminator and Adeline Wilson: infamous mercenary and the head of Searchers Inc. He'd been trained to fight and kill all of his life; even if he was generally a placid person, he could take a fatal turn instantly.

He was also very easy to offend, of course people didn't usually realise this either. He tended to brush it off with a cheery smile and they were none the wiser.

People's wording was a big issue with him. They would often say things like: 'what do you say', or 'talk to me', or 'tell me'. The last one didn't bother him quite as much, but it still got on his nerves.

On the other hand, if you took it the other way: 'show me', 'just sign' he felt like they were drawing attention to the fact that his silence could be a handicap.

The bottom line was that he didn't _like _communicating with people. He could tell all he needed to know about a person from their body language, they wasn't any need for a conversation.

He knew that he sometimes felt bitter about losing his voice, especially because it was technically his father's fault, but he tried not to dwell on it. He didn't blame him father for what had happened, he'd been mute for over half of his life and that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

Besides, he always had his art. No matter what people _liked to think about him, that was one thing everyone knew was real. He was an amazing artist and he wasn't that modest about it. He loved his art more than people sometimes. Art can't unintentionally hurt you, or make you feel alienated because of your disability to speak. _

_The only thing that annoyed him was that he couldn't sing. As a child he'd loved singing, he'd had a beautiful singing voice. At one point he had considered becoming a professional singer. _

_He sold some of his paintings at an artists' alley on the weekends. He actually made a good profit from it, but there were some portraits that he kept to himself: important girlfriends, family… They were personal, and no one was allowed to see them but him._

_Joseph also wondered at times whether he was schizophrenic. Often he seemed to act or think differently than he usually did, doing something even though it was common knowledge that he hated doing it. Even getting to the point of wanting to physically attack his friends for no real reason._

_That was when he felt like his father's son. No one would ever know it, but he'd secretly thought of joining his father as a mercenary quite a few times since becoming a Titan. He'd even had to hold himself back from killing his enemies during certain missions: forgetting all his childhood training in favour of doing the 'right thing'._

_He couldn't honestly say that he'd have an easy decision to make if his father offered him to work alongside him as a father-son mercenary team - just like Grant had wanted._

_He was a Titan, a lover, he could even be killer if he wanted to be. But alone in his own silence he was just Joey, not Jericho, not a titan, not even an artist. Just Joey, and that was all he ever needed to be._


	3. Too Human

Something is wrong.

I refuse to believe what I'm seeing, I'm not prepared for _this_. I wanted to catch him off guard, find a way to rid him of that damn detonator that kept me at his mercy. I hadn't expected to see, this.

When I somehow managed to get into his private quarters undetected I hadn't expected to see him this…vulnerable?

I'd become obsessed with finding out who this man was: that was how I'd gotten myself into this mess in the first place. But to see him now, out of costume - he looks too human. Too human to be the demon that has plagued my mind for the last year of my life.

He doesn't look _as _threatening_, _notwithout his usual armour and emotionless mask. He is shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweatpants: probably what he would wear to bed.

He has a shock of white hair and a small goatee beard. Even in his casual state of undress he still looked powerful and dangerous, that is until his single eye fell onto a shelf of photographs.

He had sighed, lifting one on the frames into his hand and sat on the edge of his bed. Just staring. He hasn't moved for a long time now, his eye never straying from the old photo.

He was just sat there, staring at the old photograph in his hand. His blue-grey eye trained on the face of the young boy in the photograph, his white hair getting messed up as he runs his hands through it: deep in thought.

His eyes are dancing with unreadable emotion and I wish I knew what he was thinking. Who was it in that photo that could make _Slade, _of all people look completely lost without even being there.

I focus my attention on the photograph, shifting my position slightly to get a better view. The boy in the photo was around my age: about seventeen, maybe? He had neat blond hair underneath the green beret of his military school uniform. I couldn't be sure, not without getting closer -and risking getting caught- but I was sure his eyes were that familiar shade of grey-blue. The same colour as Slade's.

My first thought is of a young Slade, but the youths face was too soft - nowhere near as defined as the adult mercenary's. Could Slade have a son?

Quickly I scan over the other photographs, from this distance it was hard to make out any details. Barely enough to be able to recognise any of faces if I passed them in the streets.

One group photo in particular grabs my attention. It looks like one of those pictures that is taken without anyone realising: only one of the subjects was actually looking at the camera, instead the others were interacting with each other.

A much younger looking Slade was standing with a hand on the young boy's shoulder, both of them talking as they watched the grand piano on the other side of the photo. An even younger boy, with curly blond hair and what looked like bright green eyes, was sat playing the piano next to a pretty brunette woman - probably the boy's mother. The last person in the photo -the one that seemed to have realised the camera- was more in the background. He was a kind looking older man, that reminded me so much of Alfred that I had to stare at it for a while to realise that it wasn't the old butler that I'd grown up with.

It looks like a perfectly normal, happy, family. And that's why it unsettles me so much: he has a wife and two son's. _Slade _had a family.

I'd never even considered that idea before.

Come to think about it, I never even considered him to be this…Human.

Until now Slade had been nothing more than a villain. An obsession. A bad guy that had to be stopped at all costs. But now he was a person, still a villain, but no longer the emotionless indestructible creature that I'd imagined him as. And that just made me hate him even more - that a _person could do the things that Slade had done. _


End file.
